Jackie Speier on surviving troubling times

Two of the Bay Area's most influential women talk about surviving and thriving through life's darkest days.

Featured guests:

Jackie Speier was sworn into the United States Congress in April 2008. She represents California's 12th Congressional District.

Jan Yanehiro is a Bay Area TV Host and the Director of the new School of Multi Media Communications at the Academy of Art University.

About the book: If you've ever felt overworked, overwhelmed, or just plain unlucky, This Is Not the Life I Ordered, is for you. Through this collection of stories, wisdom, and practical advice, readers will meet four ordinary women who have faced extraordinary life challenges. Together, they have a history of six marriages, ten children, four stepchildren, six dogs, two miscarriages, two cats, a failed adoption, widowhood, and foster parenthood. They have built companies, lost companies, and sold companies. One of them was shot and left for dead on a tarmac in South America, and two lived through the death of spouses. Raising babies and teenagers together, they have known celebrity and success along with loneliness and self-doubt.

The paperback version of This Is Not the Life I Ordered enters a world that feels most days like a runaway train. Headlines read and television anchors scream that we have entered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Truly it is a time that few of us saw coming and none of us ordered. It is also a time to believe that hope for a brighter tomorrow is not only a necessary strategy but a healthy and powerful way to live with the anxiety and fear that seems to be piercing the hearts of most women. In these historic, emotional, and uncertain days, this book gives 50 ways to keep your head above water when life keeps dragging you down. It is a message for today.

No better environment exists than now to form your own kitchen table group-a place where women come together to develop strategies, tactics, ideas, and avenues of opportunity even during the darkest of days. We give you a roadmap for creating your own group and a framework for sparking your motivation. This book's mission is to fill you up with enthusiasm, encouragement, and possibility even as world circumstances threaten to deplete you.

This book started simply by four friends getting together at the kitchen table to talk about their lives. Week by week and story by story, they realized their support of each other could help other women struggling with life's myriad issues of work, family, and love, as well as the big questions of life and death. For more than a decade, the power and strength of their collective friendship has enabled these women to not only survive but to thrive. The remarkable results are this collection of lessons and stories and wisdom, which can help any woman turn any misfortunate event into a joy-filled opportunity.